


and the wildflowers on his grave

by metropolisjournal (TKodami)



Category: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canonical Character Death, DCEU Exchange Treat, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Horror, M/M, Porn With Plot, Post-Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Violence, amnesia kiss, squelchy, wonky mythology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-20 14:22:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8252300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TKodami/pseuds/metropolisjournal
Summary: A horror-tinged take on Clark’s resurrection post-BvS. Bruce’s dreams are hardly better than confronting the reality of Clark, who may not have come back right.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Steals_Thyme (Liodain)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liodain/gifts).



> This idea grew out of two separate smaller ideas. What if Clark’s resurrection was far more horrifying than it (may) be depicted on screen (or in fic)? And what if Clark came back with different powers? To my recipient, I hope you enjoy this offering of horror-porn. [Architeuthis](http://archiveofourown.org/users/architeuthis/pseuds/architeuthis) said that this fic was a good idea, and I thought you’d get a kick out of it. 
> 
> With a great debt to H.P. Lovecraft.

* (B) *

Bruce dreamed of dead things. The burden of the living was to build monuments for the dead; it therefore didn’t seem strange that Bruce spent his nights visiting everyone he had lost like a man on holy pilgrimage. 

Tonight, he approached an unremarkable corner of an unremarkable graveyard--the only patch of green for miles. Reaped fields stretched in all directions around him, to the curve of the horizon, and beyond. It was autumn (it was eternally autumn in his dreams) and the cemetery grasses were browning now; the freshly-turned earth was covered in dying vegetation. In the fields, the wind had picked up the chaff in a dancing whirlwind that stretched up to the clouds. A storm was coming--but it hadn’t arrived yet. He still had time.

The last grave was his destination. No other graves beyond it had been dug, though--

Shovels and rough gloves piled by the empty plots meant more were coming. 

Bruce laid wildflowers at a small headstone, so unlike the oppressive grandeur of the mausoleum. The name on it had been obscured by dust kicked up from passing tractors. Bruce wiped at the grave marker with his jacket sleeve. The dirt ground into the fabric so deep, Bruce knew it would never come clean; he tore off the ruined suit, and wiped down the dirt and the mud and the pale green dust--until the name underneath shone through. 

Clark Kent. 

The son next to the father. Beloved. Mourned. Missed. Bruce pressed his fingers into the cold stone to touch the man through it; there was no other way he knew to acknowledge the weight of his sacrifice. 

(He put aside thoughts of the nights where he woke with quicksilver blazing in his heart. Passion was for the living.) 

What else could Bruce do? He couldn’t pull the spike out of Clark’s chest; he couldn’t uncut Clark’s cheek; he couldn’t call back his challenge to bleed. 

(It _was_ a dream--he could indulge.)

He gave his words to the silent grave: _Is it peaceful where you are, Clark? Are your people with you? Is your father proud of the man you have become?_

_Is it possible that we might be friends?_

Or was there nothing but darkness of the worlds they fought not to exist, and more besides, waiting for them in the earth? 

He touched his lips to the stone. Finally, he stood, and brushed the dirt from his knees. 

The dream had an accustomed feel to it: washed-out; jumpy; translucent. Too hard a pressure on any one place could crack the eggshell veneer of the illusion and leave him with nothing. So Bruce found it strange that tonight--the weight of someone’s shadow fell across him, pressing against him, shockingly solid. He felt hot breath on the back of his neck, and a shiver ran through his body. Before he could face it, a hand slid over his eyes and a mouth hotter than a star closed over his. Bruce could taste the grit between their lips--and the fierce burning hunger that leapt up as he opened to that kiss. 

“Forget,” the voice whispered.

And Bruce did.

*

The next morning, Bruce awoke from vague, uneasy dreams. He was hot, hard, and longing; the nightmares were almost preferable to this aching loss. Bruce flung an arm across his mouth to muffle his sounds, and panted his release into the sheets. 

He chased a benzo with leftover Sémillon from his nightstand, and started his day by drawing up plans to install a surveillance net in Smallville. The sleepy town had a low crime rate, but the farmsteads were scattered over miles of open land. If anything did happen, it could be hours before someone noticed--longer before someone responded. It’s for Martha’s protection, Bruce explained. In case anyone ever came for the body. 

“Did your trip to Smallville give you any cause for concern?” Alfred asked. 

“No,” Bruce said, truthfully. 

Martha had thrown her arms around him and cried, and they’d eaten homemade bread and thick corn chowder. Neither of them could stomach more than that; the sight of each other had torn open the careful sutures of their grief. It was the first time Bruce had visited since the funeral; there was bound to be emotional complication, and he said as much. Martha had taken his face in her hands and kissed his cheek, and whispered for him to go on ahead without her, she would be along shortly. Bruce had visited the gravesite alone, with a bouquet of bachelor’s buttons and spiderwort he’d gathered from a nearby field. Nothing else had happened when he had visited. He would have remembered if it had. 

Alfred didn’t ask about the urgency in Bruce’s tone. 

It was just as well; Bruce could hardly explain it. 

*

The surveillance net fanned out across Smallville in a well-choreographed wave of white vans. The townsfolk were told that the ruckus was a state-sponsored pilot for a new generation of traffic cameras. The residents grumbled about oversight, and the hassle, but accepted the cameras for the safety benefits they’d undoubtedly bring to the interstate routes. And the residents of Smallville were more careful under the watchful eye of those small, spherical eyes-- but as of yet, no one in Smallville gave it any thought that no extra tickets had been issued in their eight months of operation. Nor did anyone see fit to complain that there were two installed on the roads abutting the graveyard; the running joke was the day there would be a great rush to the graveyard, it’d be the day the dead walked the earth, come Apocalypse, come Judgment Day. 

No one noticed that the greatest concentration of cameras occurred on the roads passing along the Kent farm, and if they had, it wasn’t really any of their business how the state chose to spend its grant money, now was it.

In the nerve center fifteen hundred miles away, Bruce monitored the feeds restlessly, the spider at the center of his silicon web.

  


* * *

* (B) *

It was a heavy November when the winds scoured the leaves from the Smallville cemetery. A chill pressed down, the graves restless with unquiet possibilities: the worlds where the dead remembered their lives with silver ribbons, and laughter, and excursions down to the lake. None of this would be recorded by the cameras, who saw leaves tumbling and would assume it was a breeze that stirred them, who saw the gravediggers pack in their truck and would assume it was customary to head home early. 

The numberless dead groaned the implacable weight of the earth--a thundering crash tore through the sky--and were silenced.

The graveyard settled uneasily. 

*

Bruce watched the feeds as long as he could, and then traded off with Alfred, who felt far less superstitious about the eight months of nothing they had already recorded and turned the evening into one with a good book and a strong cup of Ceylon black tea. 

Adjusting his tie, Bruce swept up the stairs in his _other_ black suit. This one didn’t turn heads on the red carpet, but it fit well across the shoulders and accentuated his powerful build. No one mistook Bruce for a thinker in black-on-black Gucchi and wingtips. On the landing, Diana corralled him into a dazzling hug, and he only protested when she lifted him off his feet. It had been months since they last spoke--that was the second reason why he only minorly regretted the museum engagement. 

The first was that tonight he donated the Wayne Sun Drop diamond (thought lost in the Wayne Manor fire) to the Natural History Museum’s collection. The nouveau riche enjoyed a party, and gorgeous things drew even the most press-averse into the light. Bruce’s mission was opening hearts and wallets, and he embraced it with all of the aplomb that could be expected from a bat disturbed from its perch. 

Behind the wheel of the Aston Martin, Bruce quieted down. Diana gazed at him evaluatively. 

“You look unwell, Bruce.” Diana rubbed at her wrists which were, surprisingly, chafed. Bruce couldn’t remember her skin looking anything less than flawless. “Do you ever sleep?”

He muttered something about the mission, and how little time he had for dreams, but Diana’s curiosity was not deflected, and his tiredness did not abate.

They made for quite the pair on the museum’s steps, the greater portion of attention settling on Diana’s shoulders. By this time, the press had learned it was fruitless to speculate about _Mrs. Bruce Wayne_. The calibre of reporters at a museum gala were far more interested in how _Ms. Diana Prince_ , world-renowned antiquities expert, could find Bruce Wayne’s idea of small talk interesting. Bruce was offended on his own behalf; his party talk was _excellent_. Even Bruce Wayne had intellectual hobbies. It just so happened he was a student of classic architecture. 

(How many nights had a young Bruce asked, racing the roofs of the Charminar, _how much weight could a post-and-lintel construction hold_?) 

As they glided through rows of display cases into the flying vault of the Atrium, Diana asked after Martha, and Smallville. Bruce told her everything he knew. It was a short conversation--he saw everything, but he didn’t know much.

The dream was hardly important. It didn’t matter how Bruce chose to spend his nights.

He didn’t mention the cameras.

*

A pall settled across the graveyard. A white mist crept over the dying grass, searching--searching--until it came to the headstone at the furthest end--no others beyond it. It dug its fingers deep into the dirt. And then-- 

The deep breath that had been held, maybe for months, exhaled. The frozen earth cracked open as a fist punched through the soil. The ground shuddered and gave away as the fist pulled back and hammered again, again, again. The strength of the blows fused the crust above him, and shattered in jagged shards. 

A dark form pulled itself out of the dirt, gasping, wretched, and pale. 

All around him, the charnel smell of bodies in their graves--the nameless dead, the flesh left for insects--clogged his throat with the tang of decay. He gagged, and liquid spilled across his lips. He raised a hand to them, expecting blood. He wiped away something dark, elemental. Not of him. Not a part of Clark.

 _Yes._ That was his name.

Someone had whispered it over his grave. 

_Is it peaceful where you are, Clark?_

There was no peace in the earth: only hunger. Need. He felt it dig into him sharply. The scent from the grave was weak but, bending down to the gravestone, Clark ran his tongue along the place those lips had kissed. He touched his tongue with his fingers--numb, not responding individually to his control--and breathed in the scent. 

There was no name for this smell, but there was a face. 

A heartbeat. 

Clark remembered it hammering over him, hands pressing into his throat, sinking into his skin in rapture. Yes. He needed _more._

Opening his senses to the riotous, teeming mass of life, he heard the whole of humanity at once. It presented itself like a humid, wet blanket that coated his mind. But there! In one of overrun city, like a spark in the night, his prize. The night parted around him as he bent his knees, and launched himself towards Gotham. 

The cameras caught all of this--which happened in the turn of a page.

Alfred’s book slipped to the floor in shock, and he swore loudly. 

 

* * *

* (B) *

Bruce and Diana danced under the dome of the Atrium. Wine and Bruce Wayne’s personal compliments (or promises to invest) had loosened wallets and tongues, and the party was in high spirits. Some guests had embraced the theme of the evening, and worn chitons or peplum with a stunning collection of Attic Greek replicas--necklaces, bracelets, and earrings of designs that earned Diana’s appreciation, and warmed Bruce’s chilly disposition. The middle of a crowd was the best place not to be overheard, so: they spun around in delighted circles and talked about the League as other couples twirled around them. 

Bruce tried to lead them in a waltz, but they both knew different dances, and ended up on each other’s toes. Finally Bruce allowed Diana to move them in the rhythms of Themyscira--the hopping kick-steps of the Syrtos, traditionally danced in a circle, modified for an intimate dance. Diana held Bruce close with a closed fist at his back, like a tango, but unfamiliar in how the motions built and dissipated. 

(Once or twice, he caught sight of a man in a white chiton with a purple and gold belt girding his waist in a medieval style--but tonight was a work night--and Bruce wasn’t looking for company.)

“You haven’t told me of Themyscira,” Bruce murmured when they broke to applaud the orchestra.

“You haven’t told me everything about Smallville,” Diana returned, settling her gold collar necklace around the base of her throat. 

Bruce watched her fingers play over her skin, and with a half-drawn (genuine) smile, wondered, _If Clark had lived, would he have recognized Diana as the other half of him?_ The sun and the star, both burning for truth and justice. Next to them, Bruce was unrecognizable. Even that maudlin thought didn’t dampen his pleasure; he had spent half of his life in the dark. There was no harm in indulging the fancy of untouchable things. If Clark had lived--

The comm chirped urgently. The lingering warmth from the dance was doused in an instant. Bruce straightened up, and his hands ghosted over the points on his jacket where the seams tore away to his party gear. 

“Talk to me, Alfred.” 

“Trouble--” was all that Alfred managed before a sonic boom shook the foundations of the museum. An incoming flier. So close to a populated center, with disregard for the damage the shock wave would cause--a hostile. Seconds later (not enough time to do anything but shout for everyone to take cover) something impacted against the side of the Atrium’s dome. The building roared, as the metal vaulting twisted and crashed inward towards Bruce Wayne’s terrified guests.

Bruce didn’t flinch. He yanked off his jacket, and tore away the stitching where he kept a face mask. The tie was off, and wound around his knuckles, before Diana had jumped up to catch the largest chunk of the ceiling. She flung it away into a deserted wing, flattening a display of Etruscan pottery. There would be time to mourn the loss of history later. As masonry from the dome rained down, Bruce slipped the earless black mask over his face, and called up its HUD.

One hostile, floating over the dome. 

They needed to evacuate the building. Guests were scrambling under anything that would shelter them. They needed to be out. Out of the building. Out of harm’s way. Bruce grabbed a stricken couple from under a display of Attic jewelry. He handled them roughly, but his voice was calm, even, when he instructed them how to find the exits. 

“ _Batman…_?” The woman whispered, gripping Bruce’s hand tightly.

“Go!” Bruce barked, untangling himself from the woman, and pushing her (not unkindly) deeper into the museum. 

He was out of time. Their interloper descended through the ruin in a tattered brown suit. It had been torn in sections as if by claws to reveal his marble skin underneath. The pale skin was shot through with ink-dark veins, a creeping corruption that wreathed his face.  
\--That face--

Missed. Mourned. 

Beloved.

*

Clark Kent descended through the scattering rain of tile and cement, eyes crawling with the angry heat of his Kryptonian heritage. A cry went up from the people still sheltered in the museum in awe. _Superman!_ they gasped as they reached out, and immediately recoiled from the horror of him. This was beyond anything Bruce had dreamed--before or after Clark had died. He crouched next to Diana, who threw the train of her dress back, and tied it around her thigh. 

“It’s _Clark_ ,” Bruce rasped, trying to believe the truth of his eyes. “We have to subdue him.” 

“Hera protect us!” Diana shouted. Her bracelets materialized around her wrists as though she had simply willed them into existence (in the face of alien horrors and indestructible warriors, Bruce was willing to believe Olympian magic could do something as simple as conceal objects). “That is not Clark.”

“Sure flies like Clark,” Bruce grunted.

The Kryptonian hovered with the same careless ease that Bruce had seen when he’d flown away from Bruce's battlefield--the resemblance ended there. Clark landed, and his feet smashed into the stone, jarring Bruce out of his reverie. Each step Clark took, he closed on Bruce. Writhing white and black lines twinned through his veins. Translucent skin sheathed muscles scaled over deeper, writhing masses. Dark ichor dripped from his mouth, thicker than blood, scalding the stone floor with a sibilant hiss. The red of his eyes transfixed Bruce. Clark-- Superman-- Kal-El-- was not _this_ alien.

_Or did you let desire deceive you?_

Diana gripped Bruce by the shoulders, and spun him away from Clark. He struggled to look back--but Diana held his chin immobile. She had bound a strip of her gold dress across her eyes, and was in the process of tearing another. “You must shield yourself. You must not look it in the eyes. The temptation will be great. But you _must not._ ” 

Bruce numbly fumbled the golden strip around his head, and secured it across his HUD. For extra measure, he deactivated the mask altogether. In the sudden darkness, he could hear his heart galloping in chest.

“Enemy of Gaea, abomination of Chaos!” Diana roared, as her bracelets crashed together. There was the sound of impact, and a sudden rush of air. The sound of the fight were immediate. Diana had landed in front of Bruce to shield him. A burning scream tore out of Clark’s throat as the ring of a fist smashing against the bronze of Diana’s bracelets. 

Clark had attacked Diana? 

“Name yourself!” Diana demanded. 

“Clark,” it hissed, and a sibilant whisper overlaid the reply: _Enemy of Man. Defiler. Ruin._

“Ateyaros! God of Betrayal!”

“I am Clark Kent!” The voice roared back. Heat scorched the room, and Bruce dove behind a marble column. Bruce prayed the rest of the guests had fled. Steadying himself without the help of his eyes, he turned away from the sound of combat. If he was going to be any use to Diana, it would not be in a hand-to-hand fight. He needed an edge that could be exploited. He needed--

“Alfred,” Bruce said, “Guide me to the Greek tomb.”

The museum had a full-scale replica of a Greek shrine to one of the purification cults. Maybe something--

Alfred’s voice sounded strained past the point of credulity. “Do you actually mean to tell me you have a _plan_ for a berserk god?”

“I have a _hunch_ , Alfred,” Bruce retorted, with an amused snort. “We’ve done more with less.” 

The levity focused him, as Alfred led him through the green-cast darkness into the heart of the museum. When Bruce no longer felt heat on the back of his neck, he tore off the blindfold and his mask and took stock of his current location. 

Bruce regretted the mistake instantly.

His chest constricted. 

In front of him stood Clark Kent. Whole --together--Clark, in a white chiton fastened around his waist with a gold-and-purple girdle. He stepped forward to Bruce, who scrambled to fasten the gold band back around his eyes--but.

But Clark reached out to him, brushed his hand across Bruce’s arm--and Bruce was lost.

*

Bruce believed that he wanted nothing less--or more--in that moment than to be touched by the beast Ateyaros. Gentle hands skimmed over his forearms. “Look at me Bruce,” Clark said, and Bruce couldn’t disobey the command. Alfred screamed into his ear, but it only took a small flick against his ear to disengage the communicator, drop it to the floor, and crush it under his heel. Of their own volition, Bruce’s eyes looked their fill. This was the Clark he imagined under the tight skin of Superman’s suit (after he learned the name to go with his title--but before he’d put a hand to his chest to stop him from leaving their battlefield). A sculpted physique, his muscles lightly flexed, the graceful arching mass of his shoulders and chest. The corruption of his veins had smoothed into a human skin tone; his eyes did not burn with crawling fire; no ichor dripped from his lips. For a god, he seemed (haggard? drained?) to imitate the range of human emotion well. Too well.

“Bruce, I need you to listen to me,” the mad god commanded (in a voice that sounded more like a plea).

Bruce found the strength to close his eyes.

“You’re dead.” He repeated it like a mantra. 

The voice, damp with lust (annoyance?), said impossible words: “Hold _still._ I’m going to kiss you, Bruce. You won’t remember, but this is how it started. In the graveyard.” 

The Smallville cemetery! The bouquet of purple wildflowers. His dream. Bruce’s hands clamped over Clark’s wrists--to--to trap him. The bands of immovable muscle--he had felt these before! In the GCPD building, right before Clark’s body had succumbed to kryptonite gas, before the punishing blow from the bathroom sink. Was it possible? Could Bruce be dreaming now? 

Words failed him, so he had to use his mouth. Sightlessly, Bruce pulled the beast to him, and sucked a line down his throat. The mad god recoiled. 

“What are you--? _Bruce?_ ”

It was imperative that Bruce did not let their mouths meet. He didn’t know why--but by now, trusting his instincts was second-nature. If kissing was forbidden, there were other places he could put his lips. Bruce’s hand fumbled to find the clasp for the chiton. His fingers struck it, then pushed it away from the warm shoulder, and licked a stripe up so-smooth skin. His hands grasped unyielding flesh that (melted?) became supple under his touch, minutely arching up to meet him. Hands flitted over the shirt at Bruce’s throat and waist, but didn’t fumble with the buttons, didn’t rip through the cloth. That wasn’t important. Bruce would bring himself off if he had to. Later. 

What was important: Bruce tongued the peaked flesh of a nipple, hardening as he took it into his mouth. 

Clark panted: “Bruce, you need to--”

“This is important, Clark,” Bruce whispered harshly into his flesh. “ _Please._ ” 

A shocked moan fell from lips. Clark’s lips. This is how Clark would sound, Bruce was sure of it. The moment he convinced himself--

(But he still knew that he was being deceived; he merely let it happen).

\--his eyes flew open. Clark’s lips were parted in an o. Bewildered or amazed, he threw his head back in pleasure as Bruce palmed him through the chiton--bulge caught under his girdle, but in no other way impeded by the loose white cloth. Bruce could think of another place his mouth could go, but instead he crashed their bodies together. Bruce wanted to feel him against his hip. How hard and ready Clark was. 

Heat incandesced around his eyes, but Clark struggled--shaking his head to will the flush away. Was it arousal? Anger? Could the beast--Clark--shut it off on command? The demonstration of self-control shot right to Bruce’s cock. Through layers of intervening fabric, Bruce ground them together again in a punishing slide--and then that wasn’t what he wanted--

He wanted to feel skin. 

Bruce hiked up the skirt of the chiton against Clark’s tanned hips, the girdle pinching into Clark’s flesh, and with a breath, and a small, sharp nod from Clark, Bruce freed him from the purple and gold braid. Clark was hot against his leg. Bruce rocked gently, wool pleats dragging against him. 

His fingers stole down between their bodies, unable not to touch. There was an urgency to all of Bruce’s movements. How he fisted Clark--dry, probably on this side of painful, until a slick gush covered Bruce’s hand. He could work with that. Bruce gathered the moisture and spread it along his palm. To give Clark some pleasure--more--more that he currently was having. Clark’s eyelids fluttered against his cheek as he--jerkily--wrapped his hand around Bruce’s, and thrust up into the slick heat of their joined hands, the pink head of his cock pushing through the tunnel of their fingers. Yes. That. That was the need for urgency-- the dread of reason reasserting itself before-- 

Clark let out a shocked breath as he came against Bruce’s waistcoat. 

“Oh.” Clark frowned, even as his face smoothed out in pleasure, as though he had encountered a frustrating puzzle. “Your coat.” 

(A warning crept into his mind: ichor was the blood of the gods; the blood of the gods killed.)

Bruce raised his hand to his mouth, almost as an afterthought. He couldn’t stop himself. And sucked at the flesh between his thumb and index finger, chasing the taste of Clark. Tart and cutting, it bit at the sensitive skin in his mouth. The taste wasn’t unpleasant. It was--Clark’s eyes widened, as Bruce flushed with pleasure. 

Bruce’s pants were unzipped, and Clark’s hand was freeing him from his boxers before he could tell him how unnecessary it was. The first tentative touch had him leaking. Clark touched him slow, uncertain. 

His brow had furrowed, as though he’d never encountered this problem before (a hard, interested cock was hardly a problem in Bruce Wayne’s world, but Bruce--he sympathized). Clark was resolved to do something about it. Clark probably didn’t-- when he was alive-- hadn’t--encountered many situations he couldn’t solve with speed or strength. So when he appeared faintly puzzled, Bruce was happy to help. He licked his palm, and dropped it between their bodies, still tight together in the shadow of an Ionic column. 

“No,” Clark said, batting away Bruce’s hand. “How about this--”

Clark rubbed his hand over Bruce’s cock, wet, liquid-smooth--a slow stroke in counterpoint to Bruce’s efficient hand. Then he nudged Bruce into position against his legs. Bruce hadn’t seen it at first, but a sheen of sweat covered Clark’s body. He positioned Bruce against his inner thighs, which flexed and clamped together. It was better than he imagined: skin against skin, slick, hot with the flush of their bodies, as Bruce pushed in against flesh that was tighter than his fist. 

“Clark,” Bruce panted, holding his face. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Clark glowed. 

Bruce thrilled when he realized that Clark was actually lighting the room. In that warm light from his skin, Bruce thought he could see into the gulf between worlds--the glittering moon above a trackless snow, the reaped fields spreading out beyond human vision (but Clark could see them all, the curve of the earth, the turn of the earth, the beating drum of Bruce’s heart), and Clark stretching out, beckoning Bruce to join him on the frozen, empty plain. Bruce whited out.

Blinking through his orgasm (which had snuck up on him, and felt like loss), Bruce tucked himself back into his pants as Clark arched his back like a satisfied cat. Warm, satiated, alive. 

“Is this what Diana didn’t want me to see?” Bruce murmured against the skin of Clark’s cheek. 

“I don’t know,” Clark said lightly, ghosting his hand over Bruce’s neck, like he was--still afraid to touch--didn’t have permission for that kind of intimacy. 

Bruce took a shuddering breath. 

Now was the time to find out what price he’d paid for his weakness. He had given in to the Beast. The price, he knew, would be unbearable. 

“What did you do to her,” Bruce asked as evenly as his voice would allow. 

“Diana?" Clark looked faintly puzzled again. "She’s still occupied in the Atrium.” Clark concentrated, and suddenly Bruce was standing (he had been leaning heavily on Clark--maybe even _sitting_ on him). “Ateyaros is losing cohesion, I need to trap it _now_.” 

Clark righted his chiton over his sticky thighs, and tucked himself back in, but he didn’t move to join the fight. He frowned at Bruce. 

“You’re--?” Bruce couldn’t bring himself to say alive. Because then he would have--and if he and Clark ever, it would be--it wouldn’t be under an Ionic column in a ruined museum. It would be polite. There would be wine. Reservations. A cool breeze on the lake house balcony. _Meaningful._ \-- _Oh hell_.

Bruce cracked a fist across Clark’s jaw, and started down at it in amazement. His knuckles stung, but nothing had broken. Clark had rolled with the punch. Not like the GCPD building at all. Still--as he did then, so he did now. Bruce held up his hands in a placating gesture, as though they could hold Clark back from whatever he wanted to do. 

“Bruce, I wish it could--” Clark threaded his fingers through his hair in frustration, disturbing a damp curl that fell across his forehead. “On the island, I had time to--”

“I left flowers on your grave. Martha stayed behind at the house, because...she had been crying. Her grief was fresh. As sharp as it had been on the day we buried you.” Bruce said slowly, as he pulled the pieces together in his mind. “You were there. You weren’t dead. _You haven’t been_ \--”

“Forgive me,” Clark breathed against his lips, as he brought their bodies flush.

Clark kissed him. Bruce gave in to the desperate pressure of his mouth, and kissed him back, trying to pin him in place with the urgency of his need. 

Clark’s voice cracked. “ _Forget._ ”

And Bruce did. 

*

A stone settled in Bruce’s heart as he became aware of himself, leaning against one of the marble columns of the Ionic Architecture display in the left wing of the Natural History Museum. Something sour burned in his throat--anger and...adrenalin? 

His knuckles stung. He had been--hitting something. _Fighting._

Realizing that his communicator had been destroyed roused Bruce from the paralyzing mood that had fallen over him. In the gloom of the Roman artifact room, he hadn’t noticed his state of disarray. But with a start, Bruce saw that his waistcoat had been ruined by something. Fluids from the beast while Diana had fought it in the Atrium. It wasn’t pitch, or golden, like ichor. But he couldn’t chance it. He swiftly discarded the layer, and he yanked open its lining to grab one of his back-up comms.

“Alfred?” Bruce said, starting back towards the Greek section of the museum holdings. “I need to get to the Tomb--”

“Thank all of the angels, Bruce is safe,” Alfred exclaimed (to someone that wasn’t him). Alfred was livid. “Why on Earth did you destroy your comm?!”

“I didn’t,” Bruce said. He would have remembered doing something that dangerous in a fight.

Diana cut into the conversation before their bickering could wind any higher: “Ateyaros has been contained.” 

Bruce switched directions with barely a thought, and skidded to a halt only when he reached the Atrium. The area had been blasted by heat from the abomination Ateyaros--the floor was molten and shifting, like the tar-black skin of magma. The roof had crumpled outwards in peeling sections like a ruined flower. Everything had been smashed. The charred lumps that had once been columns, cases, and dinosaur bones behind which people had been hiding were unrecognizable. Bruce couldn’t approach Diana in the middle of that devastation. She looked up at him with the same quiet sympathy that she had worn for Lois after Doomsday. 

Bruce’s heart caught in his throat. “Were there any casualties?” he rasped. 

“No,” Diana answered. Her eyes were so patient and so understanding. Bruce had to turn away from it. “There was nothing.”

 

* * *

* (B) *

Bruce dreamed of a voidless plane. Starless, teaming with life so foreign to his understanding, nothing had shape that his mind could understand. Great colorless masses tangled into a tessellating, whirling chaos. Black ichor rose over his thighs, as he struggled not to drown in the crucible beyond space and time. As the liquid covered his face, poured down his throat--an arm reached out to pull him from it, choking, gagging on the memory of bitterness.

The arm was a steady weight against him, holding him around his waist, as they swam against the tide. He didn’t try to look at his rescuer’s face; that was a horror from which there was no rescue. Instead, he gripped the bouquet of purple wildflowers (somehow, they were the key) like a buoy, and threw them one-by-one on the husks of unrealized worlds, benedictions for the dead. The tide rose, and so did they; but still they swam, with no destination in sight. Having paid homage to the dead (and feeling so tired of merely staying afloat), Bruce leaned against the solid line of his rescuer’s chest, and whispered _Clark_ to shatter the dream.

*

With a mumbled name on his lips, Bruce awoke from one nightmare into another. He was hot, hard, and longing--but touching himself brought no relief. Bruce pressed his face into his pillow until his desire crawled away in defeat. 

Good, Bruce thought. 

Alfred and Bruce conducted their new morning routine: reviewing all of the Smallville tapes for prior to The Rising. Ateyaros had risen from Clark Kent’s grave of with all of the powers of the Kryptonian--and more. Its corruption was evident from the very first; as its blood spattered across the graves, it killed everything it touched. Diana had reassured Bruce that Kryptonian heat vision had destroyed all traces of its blood, but Bruce required certainty. The entirety of the museum had been sealed off pending a complete environmental report.

Alfred noticed that the gravediggers had left early. A week of work--meteorological data, satellite feeds, the cameras themselves, even seismic readings from the Universe of Kansas-- and no other insights were forthcoming.

“But _why that day_?” Bruce slammed his hand into the desk, scattering printouts over the floor. “ _Why that party_?”

Even the gods had to have a reason. 

*

On the twelfth day, Alfred showed Diana into the cave. She wasn’t wearing her usual bespoke white suit. Instead she wore full battle armor, shield slung across her back, and her golden lariat in her hands. Bruce immediately fell into a weary crouch. Diana took in the state of the workshop, the surveillance camera feeds, the endless piles of data with a sad pinch around her eyes. 

“Since Clark died, we have not been close,” Diana said, without preamble. 

“Not since I went to Smallville,” Bruce agreed. 

Diana motioned at the multi-monitored feed, even now rotating through the views of the roads outside of the Kent farm. “You disappeared into your web.” 

Bruce straightened up, no less wary--but no longer expecting violence. “And you to Themyscira.” 

Diana held out the golden lasso, and breathed deeply. “In Hera’s name, I want you to have the truth.” Diana breathed out, and the lariat caught fire with golden light. Bruce’s hand shielded his eyes from its overwhelming brightness. “I have not been on Themyscira. I have been helping a friend on Gavdhos, _The Prison_.” Diana sighed. “I _thought_ it was help. Now, I am not so sure.” 

“Is that the truth you need me to know?” Bruce challenged. 

“No,” Diana said, as she stepped forward and wound the rope around his wrists. Bruce struggled at the bonds, but he couldn’t free himself. “ _Remember_ ,” she whispered. 

And Bruce did.

*

Anger had never led to Bruce’s better plans, so he put it aside. Later, he would feel furious. Betrayed. For now he had to be clear-headed. 

Clark Kent was alive, and Diana knew where he was. Bruce was, apparently, the key. 

Bruce withheld his opinion as Diana unburdened her tale--for truth be told, Bruce had trouble believing in the petty feuds of gods, but at the museum, he had seen the proof of it. If his credulity could stretch to men from other worlds, and anciety Greek warriors--it could stretch as far as Diana needed it to go. For now.

It took Bruce a week to prepare. When he was finally ready, he met Diana on a private airstrip outside the Gotham city limits. They flew to Crete and picked up a mostly-empty ferry to Gavdhos. November was outside the tourist season, so they were met by an empty pier, a dusty road that stretched up a gentle embankment towards the island’s only town. Bruce shouldered his gear, and headed towards the hills. The countryside was studded with low shrubs, and rose steeply from the harbor in the curve of white cliffs. Diana offered to take them to the tower (Bruce wasn’t sure whether she flew, or she power-leapt), but he declined. 

It was vital that his enemy _knew_ he was coming. 

They hiked to the highest point on the island, past fields of violets and lavender, to a tower that stretched up to an impressive height, and shimmered in the daylight, as though it was as solid as a head mirage. No one from the sleepy village ventured here--Diana explained that the tower was shielded from mortal eyes.

“How can I see it?” Bruce asked. 

“I have opened your eyes to the Truth,” Diana answered. “You will see everything as it is, in the World of Man.” 

Again, Diana offered to carry Bruce--but he thinned his lips, and removed his scoped rifle, outfitted with a grapnel tether. He aimed it at the highest aperture in the tower, and fired the line.

“Meet you at the top,” he smirked. Bruce flew up the grapnel line, turning his body so that the momentum swung him up, and over, the small aperture (a slit window, for the prison cells that spiraled up this tower. For Bruce recognized a holding cell when he saw one). At the last minute, he grabbed the edge of the open mezzanine, and vaulted through the colonnade that held up the roof. 

As he touched ground, the sun vanished, and--as though it rose up to greet him, he was embraced in a stifling darkness. Night held dominion here; the inky darkness had no stars; it was the breathing, audient void of Bruce’s nightmare. Bruce drew himself up to his full height. He had left all of the marks of his identity behind: the cowl, the cape, the symbol. All he’d come in was an armored black stealth suit. 

Still: his enemy would know him. 

A dim light kindled. 

In the center of the room, something stirred. The chain of Hephaestus hug around its neck, each link bigger than Bruce’s fist, groaning as it rolled onto its side. As Bruce stepped forward into the lighted circle, the thing--the man--and the chain shot across the floor--and pulled up short, just out of arm-reach. Diana had told Bruce that these chains had been forged to bind Prometheus, but even the magic of Olympus wouldn’t be strong enough to contain his enemy. He remained because a will stronger than steel held him here. 

A voice that should have been kind laughed. “I _smelled_ you from half a world away.” Even without Diana, he could hear the truth of his words scratching from underneath: _Mortal. Break you. Beneath me._

Clark pulled himself into a serpentine crouch. His chiton fell across his thighs, barely hiding the lines of corruption that threaded across half of his body. One of his eyes was as empty as the void, dripping the life-killing ichor; the other eye drooped. That part of Clark looked sad. Relieved--but sad. 

“Did you bring me flowers?” 

Bruce ignored the hissing, discordant mockery underneath the question. Emotions were for later, when the beast couldn’t feed on their power. Only then would Bruce crack Clark across the jaw for what an idiot he had been, or kiss him, and maybe not in that particular order.

“No,” Bruce said. “I brought something else.” 

The pack Bruce had been carrying fell away to reveal a shining metal collar that had spikes that would drive into the neck of whomever wore it and a small ring box. 

“Ateyaros,” Bruce addressed. “By your ancient rites, I claim the right of challenge. Wear one of my tokens, fight me, and win. Only then can you claim your host in victory.” 

The beast paced towards Bruce, and stopped at the end of its chain. In the void of the beast's eye, Bruce glimpsed the chaos beyond the dark of space--hungry, waiting for him-- _as it had always been_. Bruce extended his palms forward. The beast considered its options, laughing at the collar. Bruce had chosen it for a reason; The Lord of Lies’ pride wouldn’t allow him to show even the slightest submission to an opponent. Ateyaros swiped the ring box from Bruce’s right palm, and opened it. It shrugged when it saw the contents, and slid it onto its finger.

“Remove the chains and _fight_ ,” Ateyaros demanded, and Bruce agreed. 

“Thus witnessed, Olympus bind you to your word,” Diana commanded (herself invisible), as the voice of Truth bound them to their oath.

The terms set, Diana appeared at the edge of the night. The mad beast Ateyaros flexed against the chains, and smiled at Bruce with half of Clark’s mouth.

“I _knew_ you were mine.”

Diana yanked the chain of Hephaestus free, and Bruce grinned his own madness as the Olympian magic gave way to the green glow of kryptonite. The ring jammed onto Clark’s finger burned crawling green veins up his arm. As Ateyaros’ face contorted in horror, scrabbling to bite the finger from his hand-- 

(but not even a Kryptonian’s teeth could remove an Olympian’s oath)-- 

Bruce fitted a solid black mask over his face. His voice changed, filtered through the Bat’s mouth. 

“You were wrong about one thing, Ateyaros--” 

Bruce smashed a fist into Ateyaros’ chest, and landed another blow, and another, until blood and ichor mingled together on the floor. The beast/Clark looked up at Bruce in pure horror/admiration, as Bruce towered over him. 

“ _\--You’re mine._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> And that’s how Bruce and Clark both got to be the champs that they are: a healthy dose of sex and violence, in that particular order. 
> 
> For those that have never encountered it, the amnesia kiss comes from the ending of Superman II where Clark literally kisses Lois' memories away of the entire film. It's been one of Superman's more bizarre powers, and I was happy I had the chance to play around with it in this fic!


End file.
